The decision to take a break from regular development was motivated by a “lull,” with the intention being to end up with something “focused on the flow of action, and the minute-to-minute, or even hour-to-hour experience.”

The biggest takeaway from this period is that the team has drilled down to cement the overall structure of the Witchfire.

As a result, although the game will “a very decent number of hours” long, it will be playable in 10-15 minute chunks.

The length of those chunks is intended to enable the player to achieve something quickly, while also being satisfying enough to promote lengthy play sessions.

Another significant change resulting from the demo is the team has “limited the RNG severely, and added an inherent core non-RNG perk per weapon.” This change suggests that the Witchfire will be less Borderlands 3 and more traditionally minded shooter, though Chmielarz wrote that details on the specifics of the new system will be forthcoming at a later date.

The full blog post goes into more detail about the arenas and cover implementation of the game, as well as mentioning some AI improvements that need to be made.

So far, the development team has not announced a release target for Witchfire, though plenty more details about the gaslamp shooter are available in our previous coverage.

Damien Lawardorn is an aspiring novelist, journalist, and essayist. His goal in writing is to inspire readers to engage and think, rather than simply consume and enjoy. With broad interests ranging from literature and video games to fringe science and social movements, his work tends to touch on the unexpected.
Damien is the former Editor-in-Chief of OnlySP.
More of his work can be found at https://open.abc.net.au/people/21767